An authoritative guide to the lives and works of over 100 of the most famous classical composers, encompassing all styles of composition from medieval times to the present day. Including biographies for each composer, and historical information about the musical eras, events and artistic movements of that time, also how the composers influenced or changed the development of their art form.

In the scorching summer of 1976--the hottest since records began--Christopher Norton, his wife Laura and their young daughter Faye settle into their new home in north London. The faded glory of the Victorian house is the perfect place for Norton, a composer of film soundtracks, to build a recording studio of his own. But soon in the long, oppressively hot nights, Laura begins to hear something through the crackle of the baby monitor. First, a knocking...

Presents an account of the composer's life after following his princely master to London, discussing the music-making and musicianship as well as the courts and cabals of eighteenth-century society. "A rich and evocative account of the life and work of one of the world's favorite composers. In 1712, a young German composer followed his princely master to London and would remain there for the rest of his life. That master would become King George...

Composer Peter Els --the "Bioterrorist Bach" -- pays a final visit to the people he loves, those who shaped his musical journey and, through the help of his ex-wife, his daughter, and his longtime collaborator, he hatches a plan to turn his disastrous collision with Homeland Security into a work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around them.

We think we know the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life. Austrian-born to a tyrannical father who worked him fiercely; unhappily married to a spendthrift woman; a child-like character ill at ease amid the aristocratic splendor of the Viennese court; a musical genius who died young thus depriving the world of future glories. Yet only that last point is actually true. In this comprehensive biography, John Suchet examines the many myths and misunderstandings...

This book is a memoir by the iconic singer-songwriter chronicling her story from her beginnings in Brooklyn through her remarkable success as one of the world's most acclaimed musical talents, to her present day as a leading performer and activist. From her marriage to Gerry Goffin, with whom she wrote dozens of songs that hit the charts, to her own achievements, notably with "Tapestry," which remained on the charts for more than six years, to her...

Rumi Seto plans to spend her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. When Lea dies in a car accident, her mother sends Rumi to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Struggling with the loss of her sister, abandoned by her mother, and without music in her life, Rumi turns to the friendship of a teenage surfer named Kai, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe. And Rumi is determined to write the song she and...

In his debut novel, rock legend Pete Townshend explores the anxiety of modern life and madness in a story that stretches across two generations of a London family, their lovers, collaborators, and friends. A former rock star disappears on the Cumberland moors. When his wife finds him, she discovers he has become a hermit and a painter of apocalyptic visions. An art dealer has drug-induced visions of demonic faces swirling in a bedstead and soon his...

"Little Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lives only for music--and he already knows how to appreciate it in all its forms, even the most unexpected. The young virtuoso is looking for--and finding!-- inspiration wherever it hides, even in the cries of Nannerl, his sister, or the poop of his dog. He takes lessons from the birds, crickets and frogs, intertwining every note into his great masterpieces.Based on real events in Mozart's childhood. A charming tale,...